Three days passed without any additional fares for Lanie or for me. Though I didn’t see her in person, we messaged extensively. Work was going well. Sergeant Hanlon had been out with the flu, which allowed me to ride solo in the cruiser during my shifts, and more importantly, to spend a good chunk of my time trying to find my missing drone. No dice.

  Was it possible the drone had gotten sucked back into whatever magic space these upgrades existed in when an Endr switched vehicles? Lanie was no help, saying she’d never had much need for her drones, and I’d decided to hold off on asking Dispatch. She could see all my chats with Lanie anyway, so if fourth_wall had wanted to answer the question, she could have. No need for me to double dip, so to speak.

  Per usual, the week of Christmas around Fanuel Hall and Quincy Market was fucking bananas, with tourists traipsing around looking for last-minute presents and the multitude of themed pub crawls. I had to turn a blind eye to open containers for most of the three days. If I hadn’t, I would have to lock up half the city.

  In my free time, I surveyed the entire downtown area with my Endr map open and the termina filter on. I’d noticed a residual termina signature everywhere around City Hall Plaza, from the State House and up Court Street to Tremont, and was scouring the area, both in the car and on foot. So far, I hadn’t found a single trace of a shade.

  I was sitting in my cruiser in a little parking area in the plaza when I felt the rumble of a passing Green Line train beneath me. The feeling of the T was familiar, but it gave me an idea that made my heart sink. My eyes flicked to the entrance of the Government Center station. Commuters came and went from the doors leading down under the city. Was it possible the shades weren’t above ground at all? Could they be underground? Why not? Boston was home to the first subway in America, after all. It was also home to the infamous Big Dig, the largest underground construction project in world history, one that involved moving the main Interstate underground while trying to avoid hundreds of years of subway lines, pipes, and wires. There were probably abandoned tunnels all over the place down there. I pulled up my phone and began Googling whatever I could on the hidden parts of the city.

  My personal phone vibrated with a text from Cam.

  Cam: Don’t be mad.

  I sighed. Texts like this could mean anything. Usually, they were about blowing up our Internet at The Central or about promising his parents we would help with some outdoor project that he swore would take an hour but inevitably took all day.

  Cam: I did some homework on your girl and that Ramcharger Killer guy.

  Max: wtf???

  Cam: You’re not going to believe what I found.

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  I waited for Cam to keep typing, but nothing more came. Just three dots that continued flashing on my screen for a good 30 seconds before finally disappearing.

  The Elysium Pro vibrated, and I instinctively pulled it up in my mind.

  New Fare Assigned!

  Target: Cameron Sullivan

  Profession: State Trooper

  Location: Somerville, Massachusetts

  I flinched, feeling a cold sweat break out across my body.

  songbird: I just got a fare assignment for Cam!!!

  Max: Me too. Why did we both get it? What do we do?

  songbird: I denied it. You should, too.

  I immediately declined the fare. Too late, I realized something else.

  Max: If we both got it, does that mean Axel did too?

  songbird: Not sure. I’ve never seen this before. Usually, fares are only offered to one Endr at a time. Where’s Cam right now?

  Max: Probably driving home from work, but I don’t know. He was texting me, then stopped all of a sudden.

  fourth_wall: I let this little farce go on long enough, Somerville. You’ve been careless with information on the Bureau, and for that, you have sacrificed your roommate.

  Max: Please don’t do this. Please take back the fare. I can fix this.

  fourth_wall: The fare has been accepted. This will be behind us soon. In the future…

  I didn’t read the rest of her message. I opened my regular phone and shot off a message to Cam, then flipped on my lights and siren and headed to the tunnel entrance toward home.

  Cam always got off a little before me. He was probably driving from the airport back home to The Central. I hit the Zakim Bridge in record time and scanned the traffic for Cam’s shitty little BMW. Nothing. I accelerated over the bridge, weaving around the cars that parted ahead of my lights and siren. I passed the Sullivan Station exit without any luck.

  Had Cam’s phone run out of battery? Or was I too late, and he’d already been transferred? I didn’t think so, given the fare wasn’t even offered until after his connectivity dropped. Wait a fucking minute, I thought. It wasn’t Cam’s phone at all. Dispatch had to be blocking my phone’s traffic. She had done it once before, when the shades had destroyed our apartment. Fucking Dispatch. Whatever Cam was going to tell me, Dispatch obviously didn’t want me to know. What was it he had said? I grabbed my phone, rereading his last message.

  Cam: I did some homework on your girl and that Ramcharger Killer guy.

  Cam: You’re not going to believe what I found.

  What had he found out? What had he been about to tell me that I didn’t already know? He knew about Lanie. He knew about Axel. He knew about the shades. And I had a feeling that Cam had been digging into the Bureau’s affairs after weeks and weeks of Bureau details slipping out around him. Whatever it was, Dispatch had clearly run out of patience, and now Axel was going to send Cam to another realm, maybe even flat-out murder him. I seriously doubted whether fourth_wall gave two shits about whether Cam lived or died at this point, as long as he was out of the picture.

  I was shaken out of my thoughts by a vehicle cutting across two lanes at a fast clip, roaring off the Fellsway exit that Cam and I always took to go home. At the moment, I couldn't care less about the dangerous maneuver in traffic. What had caught my attention was the vehicle itself. A Dodge Ramcharger.

  - - -

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